And while we were speaking with the CEO, we asked about the current SOE in place and the fact that murders and shootings are still a problem in these areas. According to Bennett, even though we might see it that way, the statistics show otherwise:
Elton Bennett, CEO - Ministry of Home Affairs
"All right, just to switch gears a bit, there's currently an SOE in Belize City and surrounding villages, and yet we're still seeing different crimes happening at different areas. How does the ministry choose to comment on that? Yeah."
"So this state of emergency is very different from previous, where this one is very targeted. We're looking for specific individuals based on the intelligence that we had received of possible victims. violence by these individuals and so it's very specific in targeting these individuals what you've seen in the past was state of emergencies that would just round up a large number of individuals and incarcerate them you would appreciate that if you look at the violent crimes over the past few months it's not concentrated in one geographic area it's quite all over the country really so We're dealing with a very different wave of violence across the country. And so the SOE itself, by design, will only be able to address those, one, those geographic areas and then those who we are specifically targeting."
The SOE will expire on June 7th.
